Believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be a real Savior of real sinners. Come to Him with all your sins about you. Come to Jesus impure and needing cleansing and He will make you pure. Cast your soul at His dear pierced feet at once. Take the sinner’s Friend to be your friend, because you’re a sinner. Let the Savior be your Savior, because you need saving. The Law-Giver Himself bore the penalty of the law-breakers, God will not spare the guilty, every sin must receive its due penalty. When the innocent Substitute is made to die because sin was laid upon Him, we know by His suffering that sin is exceedingly hateful to God.
God has punished Christ instead of me, and I cannot be punished anymore, I never can be, because Christ died for me. I trusted Him with my whole heart, I threw myself into His arms. With my whole weight I cast myself onto His arms. He is able save to the uttermost the sinner that comes unto Him. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I am a sinner, and my soul rests alone on Him. I have trusted Him; He is true to His word. The blood of Jesus in an instant spoke peace to my needy soul. The Lord Jesus willingly offered Himself to suffer for our sins, and He actually died for us. He died that we might live. Christ was punished for your sins, and now you cannot be punished, for the just God will not punish twice for one offense.
Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God was born of the virgin Mary and became a Jewish man. He lived on earth a life of poverty, suffering and holiness, and at last He was nailed to the Cross, and in deep woe He died for your sins. He was buried, He rose again from the dead, He ascended into Heaven. And now God “commandeth all men everywhere to repent and says to you; “Whosoever believeth on the Son of God shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Believe in Christ, cast your soul on the full Atonement that He has made. Believe that the Man who died on Calvary was God and that He took your sin upon Himself and suffered for it all. Trust Him, and you are free from sin forever. Jesus Christ the Righteous willingly became Sin, so that sinful men could be made the Righteousness of God in Christ. God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven me.
The Lord Jesus, who lived above the sky, came down to be a man and die. And in the Bible we may see, how very good He used to be. He always went about doing good, He was so kind, to cure poor people who were blind, and many who were sick and lame. He pitied them, and did the same. And more than that – He told them too, the things that God would have them do, and so was the gentle and so mild, He would have listened to a child. But such a cruel death He died – He was hung up, nailed, and crucified. And those kind hands that did such goods; they nailed them to the Cross of wood. And so He died and this is why, He came to be a man and die; the Bible says He came from heaven, that we might have our sins forgiven. He knew how wicked man had been, He knew that God must punish sin; so out of pity, Jesus said, “I will bear their punishment, condemn Me instead of them.”
Listen to the wondrous gospel story; Jesus left the realms of glory. As a little baby He was born, He left the excellent glory, in His great and boundless love. He came to a lowly manger and dwelt beneath a humble shed, and among His own a stranger, He had no where to lay His head, He went from city to city, all His life was doing good, He wept over sinners with pity. Love all human love exceeding, brought Him to a cruel death. Even when He was hanging bleeding on the Cross. His last breath spent He it for His murderers, praying for God to forgive them, to the penitent thief He said, “Today in paradise shalt thou live.” Christ Himself came to seek and to save us. He came to die for us, so He could forgive us.
The Law comes to curse me. But the Law has cursed Christ instead of me. The Law cannot curse twice for one offense. The Law is silenced. The Law has received all it can demand and cannot demand anything more. All that God can demand of a believing sinner, Christ has already paid, and nothing can accuse a soul that believeth in Jesus. You were in debt, but Christ your Best Friend paid your debt, no warrant can be served on you. I did not pay it, but it is paid, and I have the receipt. That is suffering in any court of Law. All the penalty that was due to us, Christ has borne it. Christ has suffered the full wrath of God for me.
The Lord Jesus without the gate did bleed for me as my Surety, and on the Cross discharged my debt. We are clear and clean, absolved and delivered, even as if I had never sinned. Jesus voluntarily put Himself into the sinner’s place and bore the sinner’s doom, He was numbered with the transgressors, the justice which smites sin smote Him, the frown that falls on sin fell on Him, Jesus condescended into our place so that He might lift us up into His place, transferring His right to us, as He took our sin upon Himself. The Son of God love His enemies, and died for them. This will arrest the sinner. He stood in the sinner’s place and was put to shame, agony, and death. The sight of the bleeding Savior overcomes evil and carelessness.
God will save only sinners who trust in His Son. Jesus Christ came into this world and took upon Himself our nature. He was found in fashion as a man, He took the transgressor’s place, the sins of the whole world were laid upon Him, imputed to Him, charged to His account and He suffered for them as if they had been His own sins. He was scourged, tormented, crucified, and slain. The stripes He endured were the chastisement due to human sins; the death He died was the death threatened to sinners, and now, whosoever will trust on Jesus benefits from the Redeemer’s substitution. He suffered what we should have suffered. His merits for the obedience which we ought to have rendered. Faith in Jesus makes us righteous through the righteousness of Another, faith in His blood causes us to be accepted in the beloved, perfected in Christ Jesus. By the first Adam we fell, by the Second Adam we rise again. Now we partake of the benefit of Christ’s death by simply believing in Him.
